that's how my first japanese techer showed me how to write A,I,U,E,O. Heh, but after 4 years of writing them now and just doing them over and over. It just becomes natural to you and you don't even care how it looks. You just know what it is and how it looks. ^_^

do not use graph paper for kanji. It kind of makes it harder on you when you are writing the kanji. I do not know how to explain it, but writing japanese on graph paper makes you writing look strange. Something I learned thanks to a japanese friend, right after she told me that my kanji looked strange. >_<

Perhaps your kanji looked strange for another reason? I don't see how graph paper could cause your kanji to look different, the graph paper helps you keep your characters taking up the same space as other characters.

that's how my first japanese techer showed me how to write A,I,U,E,O. Heh, but after 4 years of writing them now and just doing them over and over. It just becomes natural to you and you don't even care how it looks. You just know what it is and how it looks. ^_^

Exactly who cares how neat it is as long as you and most other people who read it will be able to make out what it says.
Personally my handwriting is ok but at least most people can make out what it says. My teacher though is another story, everything has to be perfect...Can you please post pics of your RA if you could, I would like to see why he keeps marking me off a half point for my ra, he circles the top part.
BTW what is everyones' favorite character to write...I love to write the hira and kata KA and the hira O:).

Last edited by shikamarufoo on Fri 02.10.2006 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Also, don't worry if your kana doesn't look exactly the way it should. After more study and revision you'll find that you'll get a better eye for the way it should look. Anyway, as long as it's understandable, it should be fine.

I agree. When it gets right down to it, whose handwriting in English (or whatever other languages that use this alphabet) looks like the pictures in the penmanship books? I know that my own handwriting is a combination of printing and cursive.

shikamarufoo wrote:Exactly who cares how neat it is as long as you and most other people who read it will be able to make out what it says.

I think the Japanese put more stock in skillful handwriting than English speakers do. It's part and parcel when your written language is so visual. Think about it. The Roman alphabet is utilitarian only. How often have you seen an artist print a letter "E" on a canvas and try to pass it of as art?

Writing kanji (and even kana) is a very, very common art form here, though. And every school child spends hours every week from elementary on through to high school practicing penmanship (brushmanship?). There are even books out there that show you the exact way that you should write characters in pen or pencil. Trust me, it's all very precise, and the Japanese are sticklers for rules. I've had more discussions about people's penmanship here than I can remember. It is something that people notice - something that's very different than the way writing is regarded in the West.

RGMex wrote:do not use graph paper for kanji. It kind of makes it harder on you when you are writing the kanji. I do not know how to explain it, but writing japanese on graph paper makes you writing look strange. Something I learned thanks to a japanese friend, right after she told me that my kanji looked strange. >_<

I'm not sure why your Japanese friend would say this, since every kanji learning book in Japan has students tracing characters in a square broken into four quadrents. They then practice writing the character on their own, but in the same square with four quadrents. The advanced stage has them writing the characters in the square without quadrents. And when practicing essay writing, Japanese writing paper tends to have rows upon rows of equally spaced and equally sized squares, and students are graded for how well their kanji take up each square in a precise, balanced way.

Balance is very important to Japanese penmanship, and that's hard to develop without some sort of reference. I think the graph paper idea is a good one.

It seems to be a harder language to write than to learn in your head, to be honest :@ But I'm enjoying it a lot and will be a good third language to learn (or fourth, as I'm also learning german at the same time, only it's halted a bit, and I speak Gaelige(irish) and English).

I wrote these wihle I was in the Japanese 101 class. I practiced the hiragana quite a lot and I think I write pretty good now. My teacher and a few Japanese students told me that my hand writing was good.

Hiragana:

A speech for the 101 class: (don't look at all the mistakes, it's lots of them )

Well, it IS something that takes a while to get used to. Japanese people have been writing since childhood, and most of use have started only a few years ago. My handwriting was pretty mediocre too when I first started, but after practicing for a few years it got a lot better.